The "McGonigal" file is American, the Albanian problem

Alfred Lela

Spectacularizing the "McGonigal-Rama" file is one of the fastest ways to shift the focus and divert attention from the impact and importance of the event. It is not the gifts that Rama received from the FBI agent, nor the double spy status of Person A, nor the fact that the latter comes from Tropoja, is Besnik's cousin, Azemi's friend, or has a photo with Berisha. All of these are interesting, as guesses or as facts, but what is worth discussing is that political and social balances in Albania are established not through competition, elections, and clash of ideas, but through suspicious, illegal, and double or triple connections.

The Albanian opposition today has a former president and a current leader, one filed for a 'Russian dossier' and the other declared non-grata by the State Department. (This is not the case to enter the thesis that by means of the Russian file, which apparently Rama produced, he also "processed" L. Basha).

Turning the mirror towards America does not help us, however, nor does it solve the problem, which is essentially Albanian, despite the international twists. Albania has a prime minister who, clearly, operates in politics and outside it, with the aim of eradicating the opponent. A continuation of the old class war by other means. America is not the problem, and I emphasize it again, because as the "McGonigal" case proves, you can get away with one branch of the American government or justice, but get caught by another, you can hide for a year or several, but not forever.

It is different here: the symphony of evil is conducted by the prime minister and followed in tune by the media, the judiciary, by civil society groups, and so on. There is no separation of powers here because there is only one power. In this sense, the problem is not American, but Albanian.

Here are two moments: the only question that was asked to the DP chairman when he appeared at the press conference about the "McGonigal" file was, not about the topic, but about January 21. This is the media. The justice system, whose proponents boast that it is reformed, could immediately create an investigative file by operationalizing what the 'reform' allows, that any prosecutor, anywhere in Albania, can open a case.

But what is even more systemic and harmful is an effort to poison the common well of the public sphere. The invention of the pro-Russian and anti-American opposition has been a sharp knife stuck in the back of peace and the political standard in Albania. Doubly so when this is produced by the heirs of a left that comes straight from the Labor Party and has had for the Yugoslavs, the Russians, and all the crooked East, a permanent soft spot.

This has produced political and social dystrophy, an ethical quagmire that drives the most sensitive to leave the country or withdraw from the public interests, and the most unscrupulous to continue deepening it.

In this last point, there is 'American' participation. Such bad taste on Ambassador Kim's part posting of photos of James Baker's visit, where the silhouette of Sali Berisha, at that time one of the leaders of the democratic movement and, in the words of the American Secretary, his invitee in Tirana, was missing.

This technique, a branch of cancel culture, so dear to the American extreme left, is even more harmful in the long run. It is that idea that leads to the change of places I mentioned above, pro-Americans posing as anti and pro-Russians as knights of Westernism.

Edi Rama has moved, like the one he himself labeled as a 'disgrace to civilization', Donald Trump, to post-truths and alternative facts. The help from those sent by America who are anti-Trump there and 'pro-Trump' here is inappropriate and even catastrophic for a small country like Albania.

The spectacularisation of an event that tells us where our bottom is, shows that we have not yet arrived at being a free society. Not even having strong institutions to guide us, the precipice is inevitable.